The present application relates to text-based information transmission such as, for example, data-carousel text-based information broadcasting an example for which is the XML-based low-profile information service Journaline®.
Data carousel text-based information broadcasting being representative of a text-based information transmission, enables text-based information to be distributed to a huge amount of users with keeping the technical overhead reasonably low. For example, no uplink or feedback signals from the receivers to the broadcast transmitter is needed. In order to enable the users to individually navigate through the information content provided by the broadcast signal according to their personal preferences, the whole information is divided-up into objects referring to other objects, thereby enabling interactively navigating to the resulting linked arrangement of objects. To be more precise, menu objects enable the user to select, among menu items, in order to proceed from one object to the other.
Although it would be possible to provide each object with a parent object ID in order to enable the user to move from this object to its parent object by pressing, for example, a respective return button, the provision of such a parent link is not provided in any data carousel broadcast system or is not even worthwhile due to fact that more than one menu object may forward-link to an object so that a preset parent object ID pointer would not allow for an intuitive return action. In the NewsService Journaline, the objects are arranged in a hierarchal tree structure with links leading from the route object to any other object extend via link items of objects such as the menu items of menu objects or the interactivity features links of objects, the link item pointing to another such as, for example, hierarchically subordinate, object.
Taking the above properties of data carousel text-based information broadcasting systems into account, it becomes clear that the navigation through the respective tree structure of text-based information objects may be cumbersome for the users, or that an updating of the information content broadcasted by the broadcast signal may be limited. For example, in order to render the information broadcasted available for users of different languages, the text-based information tree structure may be provided in the form of a forest of disjoint rooted trees, with each receiver being configured to start the navigation through the respective rooted tree structure or being configurable to start navigation at a selectable one of these rooted tree structures. New languages may be accommodated by new trees with new tree roots. However, the necessity of configuring the receiver is sometimes unwanted due to the related overhead in providing the user with the ability of configuring the receiver. In auto radios, for example, the number of input switches may be highly restricted so that a configuration of the radio to a new root object ID associated with a newly supported service language would be too cumbersome. Another possibility is to configure all receivers to start navigation at a common root menu object, with this root menu object providing the user with the ability of selecting a language so that each language would correspond to a respective sub-tree of the whole tree and adding a new language would merely necessitate adding a menu item to the root menu object pointing to the new tree of objects concerning the newly supported language. However, even this possibility would necessitate the user having to select the language first in order to navigate through the actual information in his/her language.
Another problem stemming from the above-mentioned properties of data carousel text-based information broadcasting, which the broadcaster faces, is the broadcaster's necessity of continuously updating the text information objects in order to keep the information contained therein up-to-date. Some information presented in the data carousel is of temporary validity only. In other words, this information should be broadcasted merely for a limited time duration with assigning the object ID to another information content upon expiration of the respective time duration. Even other information, however, is relevant for a longer time in a periodic manner. For example, some object IDs could be reserved for presenting information on birthdays of famous persons to the user and the names of persons for a specific date would get relevant on a year-by-year basis with the information broadcaster having to update the content associated with that object ID each day.
Further, data carousel text-based information broadcasting signals are not restricted to textual information alone. For example, some objects may contain additional data, which is to be disregarded by low-profile receivers, with this additional data being dedicated for high-level receivers capable of handling this additional information such as data pertaining special symbols, graphics, location information or the like. In some cases, it would be a waste of time for a user having a low-level receiver to visit a certain object due to their main content relying on this additional data rather than pure text data. This, in turn, increases the navigation overhead for the user.